But there were no studies back then, as to direct impact, to species in the ocean ecosystem in any particular gyre, except some observations about the obvious ingestion and tangling issues such gyres would engender.

Now, a new report indicates that these gyres are changing the oceans' ecosystems in ways that should concern us all the more:

Plastic pollution in the form of small particles (diameter less than 5 mm) — termed ‘microplastic’ — has been observed in many parts of the world ocean. They are known to interact with biota on the individual level, e.g. through ingestion, but their population-level impacts are largely unknown. One potential mechanism for microplastic-induced alteration of pelagic ecosystems is through the introduction of hard-substrate habitat to ecosystems where it is naturally rare. Here, we show that microplastic concentrations in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) have increased by two orders of magnitude in the past four decades, and that this increase has released the pelagic insect Halobates sericeus from substrate limitation for oviposition. High concentrations of microplastic in the NPSG resulted in a positive correlation between H. sericeus and microplastic, and an overall increase in H. sericeus egg densities. Predation on H. sericeus eggs and recent hatchlings may facilitate the transfer of energy between pelagic- and substrate-associated assemblages. The dynamics of hard-substrate-associated organisms may be important to understanding the ecological impacts of oceanic microplastic pollution.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

In the first post of this series Dredd Blog pointed out the overall purpose of U.S.eh? War Colleges.

We only briefly touched upon some of the general subject matter being taught in those "educational institutions" located out on Highway 61.

About a year later, we zeroed in on the main theme of a war college, in the Dredd Blog post Is War An Art or Is War A Disease?, but now we have some actual classroom material from the U.S. War College, so, let's take an even closer look at what has been taught to officers who have been deployed "around the world", ostensibly for your "security."

Note that "around the world" is not an exaggeration, because MOMCOM has "little" COM areas that literally cover the globe, as was pointed out in the Dredd Blog series The Virgin MOMCOM.

Anyway, there is a far more harsh criticism in another Dredd Blog series, but first lets look at the "class material" taught in the war colleges:

The U.S. military taught its future leaders that a “total war” against the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims would be necessary to protect America from Islamic terrorists, according to documents obtained by Danger Room. Among the options considered for that conflict: using the lessons of “Hiroshima” to wipe out whole cities at once, targeting the “civilian population wherever necessary.”

For the better part of the last decade, a small cabal of self-anointed counterterrorism experts has been working its way through the U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement communities, trying to convince whoever it could that America’s real terrorist enemy wasn’t al-Qaida — but the Islamic faith itself. In his course, Dooley brought in these anti-Muslim demagogues as guest lecturers. And he took their argument to its final, ugly conclusion.

...

International laws protecting civilians in wartime are “no longer relevant,” Dooley continues. And that opens the possibility of applying “the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki” to Islam’s holiest cities, and bringing about “Mecca and Medina['s] destruction.”

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

On this date in 2009, Dredd Blog looked at the science fiction ideology of the Ferengi, and found it very much like what we now call the 1%, the Plutocracy, or in some cases the Plutonomy.

The fusion of religion, economy, greed, and blood lust into one governmental entity which the Ferengi ultimately call the Blessed Exchequer, but which Dredd Blog calls MOMCOM was the subject of that post which had this text:
What does one do when your home world ("homeland" is so yesterday) is attacked and you are the Grand Nagus or The Decider of the Ferengi?

You issue a call for everyone to go shopping, the metamorphic transcendence and the one immaculate concept of the realm. The Ferengi have fused religion and government into a monetized way of life:

Their home planet ... is the center of the Ferengi Alliance and is governed by the Grand Nagus and a Commerce Authority made primarily of the Council of Economic Advisors (formerly Board of Liquidators). Like most of their culture, their religion is also based on the principles of capitalism: they offer prayers and monetary offerings to a "Blessed Exchequer" in hopes of entering the "Divine Treasury" upon death, and fear an afterlife spent in the "Vault of Eternal Destitution".

In a home world where killing and torture are becoming secondary subjects not fit for the front page, where the real concerns are credit cards, lucre, and plunder, there must be a camouflaged ideological fusion of religion and government at some level.

An interesting problem faced by this perspective is that audiences see the Ferengi as a weak social energy:

... but viewers could not see the ridiculous creatures as posing any kind of consistent threat. Thus, Paramount scrapped them as true threats, and they were usually shown as being somewhat of a one-dimensional nuisance, and plots involving them were usually comedic ones.

Thus, Americans are more and more being seen as a dangerous circus that not only does damage to the world economy, but is very armed and very dangerous.

Imagine the mob and syndicate of organized crime infamy forming a circus as a means of impressing the world. They bring down their economy, damage the world economy, and as a solution the American banksters are given one or two generations worth of taxpayer dollars as the solution to the problem they caused.

For the general population, the 99% in the imagery of the Occupy movement, it’s been pretty harsh -- and it could get worse. This could be a period of irreversible decline. For the 1% and even less -- the .1% -- it’s just fine. They are richer than ever, more powerful than ever, controlling the political system, disregarding the public. And if it can continue, as far as they’re concerned, sure, why not?

Take, for example, Citigroup. For decades, Citigroup has been one of the most corrupt of the major investment banking corporations, repeatedly bailed out by the taxpayer, starting in the early Reagan years and now once again. I won’t run through the corruption, but it’s pretty astonishing.

In 2005, Citigroup came out with a brochure for investors called “Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances.” It urged investors to put money into a “plutonomy index.” The brochure says, “The World is dividing into two blocs -- the Plutonomy and the rest.”

Plutonomy refers to the rich, those who buy luxury goods and so on, and that’s where the action is. They claimed that their plutonomy index was way outperforming the stock market. As for the rest, we set them adrift. We don’t really care about them. We don’t really need them. They have to be around to provide a powerful state, which will protect us and bail us out when we get into trouble, but other than that they essentially have no function. These days they’re sometimes called the “precariat” -- people who live a
precarious existence at the periphery of society. Only it’s not the
periphery anymore. It’s becoming a very substantial part of society in
the United States and indeed elsewhere. And this is considered a good
thing.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

In the first post of this series we considered the ongoing, increasing suicide rate, crimes, and mental illness that the military, including veterans, see and experience within their ranks.

This morning on Morning Joe, MSNBC, retired Admiral Mike Mullen pointed out that 18 of them commit suicide a day now, or 6,570 each year, and the rate is increasing (2nd video below; see also Washington Post).

Those numbers don't include the fact that about one third of them coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, over 300,000 and growing, even if they do not commit suicide, murder, or other crimes, have other mental health problems to deal with.

The first video at the end of this post is from 2007, and is used only to show that the problem is increasing, is not being dealt with, in fact is being "ignored."

Monday, May 7, 2012

This series began on this date in 2009, when the first post laid out the origin of the robber barons, and, in tongue-in-cheek fashion, pointed out how the Bush II regime removed them, only to replace them with the plunder barons.

The basic theme of this series is that the 1% Plutocrats, the plunder barons, are now, and have been for some time, sucking the wealth out of the middle class and putting that booty into their own corrupt coffers.

Here is the text of the first post in this series, just to show that we are still in the eye of the storm:Modern U.S. History has a chapter concerning the Robber Barons.

Briefly, this is the gist of it:

Robber baron is a term that revived in the 19th century in the United States as a reference to businessmen and bankers who dominated their respective industries and amassed huge personal fortunes, typically as a direct result of pursuing various anti-competitive or unfair business practices. The term may now be used in relation to any businessman or banker who is perceived to have used questionable business practices or scams in order to become powerful or wealthy (placing them in power of everything having controlled most business affairs.)

(Robber Barons). How did the bushies remove the boogie man from under your bed, since that description sounds strangely like the banksters of recent "bailout" infamy?

How did they do that you may be asking? The answer is that they did it using what they think is the "Christian way".

The very Bible they profess to follow says: "... because law brings wrath. Where there is no law, there is no transgression of the law" (Romans 4:15). Now ask yourself, "what good robber baron wants 'wrath' for doing what comes naturally"?

So, when the bushies heard the preacher in church quoting Romans 4:15 their eyes twinkled so brightly folks in the pews around them thought that a meteorite was passing overhead.

It was like the conversion of the Apostle Paul, only in reverse. It was an epiphany of the sort that changes a nation from one age into another age.

They removed the law, which made taking money from the public trough in certain ways, robbery. Thus, no robbery law, no transgression of the law bringing wrath, and thus no more robber barons.

The U.S. then entered the age of the Plunder Barons, who after gorging themselves under Bush II and the republican controlled congress, are seeing if they can corrupt the new blood recently elected.

Yes, they are seeing if they can corrupt the newbies into the same ideology, so that the Age of Plunder can continue from election to election.

Now that kind of highway and other robbery no longer exist as crimes in our nation, evidently, just like torture really doesn't exist if they praise Allah while having their ahem reshaped. Your tax future is being reshaped, so praise the Lordy.

It boils down to official federal plunder, whether that plunder is a reaction to a prior regime's plunder or whether it is a newbie's own plunder.

Some plunderers are going to jail because they did not read the official memos that explain how to do it properly, like the memos that got the torture gang off.

In this New Age of Plunder the phrase "power to the people" has now morphed into "plunder to the people", as the diet has gone from brain food to drive through McNow Chow.

CNBC offers its solution for a free market America by urging us to buy stock in fat-to-thin plunder schemes, delusional thinking schemes, and dream on about your Saviour schemes.
The previous post in this series is here.

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